THE STYLES OF HENRY IV. AND LOUIS XHl. 223 



tion and reasonableness of the French temperament, and while it 

 avoided the worst excesses into which it fell in other lands it also failed 

 to attain either the impressive vehemence of the Flemish or the poetical 

 abandon of the kindred Italian style. France can thus scarcely be said 

 to have a true barocco style of her own. Buildings designed as a 

 whole in the extreme barocco manner, such as the church of Ste Marie 

 at Nevers (Fig. 257), are extremely rare, and indeed scarcely to be 

 found elsewhere except along the Flemish border. 



THE ARCHITECTS. 



BIARD, CHASTILLON, DU PERAC. The architects of the buildings 

 erected in Henry IV. 's time can only rarely be determined with 

 certainty. On the death of Baptiste du Cerceau (1590) there was a 

 dearth of trained talent. No important work can be assigned to Pierre 

 Biard (1559-1609), his successor as Architect and Superintendent of 

 the Royal Buildings, except the rood-loft at St Etienne du Mont (Fig. 

 86), and he seems to have been principally occupied with sculpture. 

 Claude Chastillon (1547-1616) was employed by Henry IV. to design 

 public buildings and city improvements, and as a military engineer. 

 His architecture was of the rather pedestrian order typical of the times. 

 Etienne du Perac (c. 1540-1601) was a man of greater culture. He 

 spent many years in Italy, where he practised as architect and engraver, 

 and etched some of the designs for St Peter's and the ruins of Rome. 

 On his return in 1582 he was employed by Henry III. and Henry IV. 

 He seems to have taken a large part in the additions to the royal 

 palaces, and brought in a bolder type of garden design. While at St 

 Germain and Fontainebleau his work is not above the average of his 

 time, at the Louvre it rises to a classic nobility. 



T. AND L. METEZEAU, JACQUES II. DU CERCEAU. Apart from 

 these men the royal favours seem to have been monopolised by the 

 families of Androuet du Cerceau and M^tezeau. Thibaut Metezeau 

 ( f - 1 533 -96), son of Clement I., master-mason at Dreux, was 

 employed by Henry III., may have worked on the Grande Galerie 

 of the Louvre, and made the first scheme for joining the Louvre and 

 Tuileries into a single palace, shown in a fresco of the Galerie des 

 Cerfs at Fontainebleau.* Between his elder son Louis (1559-1615) and 

 Jacques II. du Cerceau (1545-1614), brother of Baptiste, there was 

 a somewhat embittered rivalry. Louis Metezeau, who was appointed 

 Architect in Ordinary to the King and Superintendent of the Royal 

 Buildings (1594), probably worked at the Louvre, i.e., on the eastern 

 half of the Grande Galerie. At his death his salary was 2,400 1. a year, 



* See notes on pages 141, 167 and 168. According to M. Batififol's theory this 

 scheme is that prepared by Lescot in 1549- 



